Most traditional accounts do not mention Zanabazar’s trip to Inner Mongolia to met the Dalai Lama in early 1655. Skipping over this episode, they relate instead that in the summer of 1655 Zanabazar decided to make another trip to Tibet: “. . . I should like to accomplish my pious desire of again making obeisance to the Dalai Lama,” Zanabazar announced. “and especially to the Holy Panchen Vajradhara Lama [Panchen Lama] and hear the initiations and empowerments and so on which I meditated on before.” In preparation for the journey he decided to go into meditation for several months at his newly established retreat of Tövkhon at Shibeetu Uul. In the autumn of 1655 he left for Tibet.

The Rosary of White Lotuses claims that this trip to Lhasa was made “incognito” but offers few other details. If it was done incognito it is possible that Zanabazar announced that he was going in a very lengthy retreat and then after a few months in meditation in Mongolia quietly slipped off to Tibet with only a few escorts. We are offered no clues as to why Zanabazar chose to travel clandestinely. Indeed, at this point the traditional Mongolian accounts of Zanabazar’s life become untethered from reality and assume an altogether fabulous character.

“Then taking six men as escorts,” one account informs us, “he proceeded by forced stages continually on horseback and in seven days and nights arrived in the land of Tibet.“ The timeframe here is obviously erroneous. As noted earlier the fastest ever recorded trip from Urga to Lhasa was made in seventy-nine days by Avgan Dorzhiev in 1899-1900.

The speed of the journey was explained by the assertion that it was not accomplished by the traditional means of horse and camel. Instead, Zanabazar and his six traveling companions turned into turpans, the so-called “lama ducks” (galuu in Mongolian) common in Mongolia in summertime, and flew to Tibet. Any number of miraculous events occurred during this flight south to Lhasa. Some of the more picturesque is paraphrased by Pozdneev from traditional accounts:

A Mongol of Sain Noyan aimak who was keeping watch over his grazing sheep saw seven turpans flying through the skies toward the southwest. Knowing that these birds are found only in Khalkha during the summer, the Mongol decided that now, in late autumn, only Buddhas or Bodhisattvas could be flying in the form of these ducks. He immediately herded his sheep home and said to his wife, ‘A procession of Buddhas is coming, cook some meat right away and prepare a dombo of tea. I will go to entertain them.’ The Mongol woman cooked tea and food, and her husband, taking these refreshments with him, set forth toward the southwest, the direction toward which the birds had flown. It had already become dark when he saw that there were seven persons whom he did not know sitting on the open and level steppe. Coming up to them, he told them of his vision, what he had surmised, and of his decision to entertain the Buddhas, and then he concluded this tale by saying that insomuch as the number of wayfarers who were sitting here coincided with the number of flying birds, he would therefore make them a present of his refreshments. The wayfarers accepted the food which had been brought to them, and the Gegen (it was he and his lamas) gave the cordial Mongol a handful of flour as a return gift and said: ‘put this in your sacrificial cup used to summon happiness and thereafter you will be happy for all time.’ This prophecy was wholly fulfilled, and the descendants of this Sain Noyan man live as rich men to this very day.

Yet again:

On the way, of course, the Gegen was protected by the mighty choijons (protective genii), but, nevertheless, the trip was not managed without adventure. As they camped for the night at the Tarya-khulusun landmark, the wayfarers had all of their horses stolen. When they arose in the morning and the time for their departure was already approaching, they reported the loss to the Gegen. ‘I am protected by a large number of Choi-jins, but what was Jamsaran [one of his traveling companions] doing?!’ cried the vexed Gegen, and then he ordered his servants to go searching toward the east. At that same moment and, in fact, from the east a cloud of dust arose and began to approach nearer. These were the Gegen’s seven horses galloping, and there were two thieves bound by their hair to the horses’ tails. The Gegen praised Jamrasan for his punctual delivery of what was lost and continued farther on his way.